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Weird day with our snail

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We recently set up a fishtank for my son, and after a few weeks decided to add a Mystery snail named Gary (of course). He's in the tank with 6 tetras. Everything has been fine for the last few weeks. He's active, he eats Algae pellets and fresh spinach, and has been pretty happy. The tank has 2 fake plants, a fake piece of coral, gravel, and a statue of neptune...nothing crazy.

Then starting this morning, we have experienced a VERY strange chain of events.

1. When we woke up we noticed Gary had a little growth attached to him. Then we noticed the growth was moving! It was a baby snail! Tiny - 2mm long. I should emphasize that Gary is the lone snail in the tank, and there aren't any live plants...I call the baby the immaculate conception snail.

2. At that point I searched the entire tank for snail eggs...found nothing. There were no eggs anywhere. After a while, "Gary Jr" (of course) went down to the bottom and started feeding.

3. Gary was doing laps around the top of the tank near the waterline. He did this for about an hour, and would lick the glass every lap or so. Then, he would stop every little while, and literally twist his entire body and hang almost completely out of his shell. Almost like he was stretching. He would twist, curl backwards, extend out...super weird, and nothing we had seen him do. Eventually he found a spot at the front-left corner of the tank near the waterline and pretty much sat there all day. Until number 4 happened.

4. We went out for a while, and when we got back, there were white strings with tiny white dots on them all over the tank. Some were at least 6 inches long! Then we saw Gary, who was still sitting in the same spot in the corner near the waterline, release another string with dots. They were tangled all over the plants and poor Neptune, and there were smaller pieces on the gravel.

5. A short while ago I noticed he was a little pale. Then he suddenly released the glass and jumped down to the gravel. He walked around for a while, it looked like he ate some of the algae pellet, then eventually walked to the other end of the tank and climbed back up to the waterline, where he remains as I type.

Meanwhile, the immaculate conception baby snail is still cruising around the gravel, eating while exploring a very small radius of gravel.

I do know that their eggs are laid above the water line and are kind of hard to miss:

Gas mileage isn't everythingOIIIIIIIOLack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.Why pretend there are no stupid questions? Actually, There are many stupid questions: "Should I drink this bleach?" Is just one example.
Having said that, Just because it's a stupid question doesn't mean that it shouldn't be asked. It's better to know.A warm beer is better than a cold beer. Because nothing is better than a cold beer, and a warm beer is better than nothing.

not all apple snail relatives lay their eggs in that fashion. spixis, for instance, lay clumps of eggs on hard objects under water that look a lot like frog spawn. And aquarium stores arenút exact with species labeling either, so if you see "gary" releasing those strings they could as well be eggs. some snail species can store sperm for lengthy periods of time so gary could have mated in the store tank and decided to lay eggs now.